G'day, Worn out feathers are great for warm ups. Practice hit ups and smashes without worrying busting a new shuttle
Is this what we use or would prefer? I usually have to use plastic, but I work now so I can buy some cheap feathers for practice. Unfortunately, my club plays with plastic, so the casual players wouldn't like me bringing in feathers. Besides, they would ruin them since they are used to wacking vinyl shuttles. I have a box of worn out birds for drills that don't require proper flight such as low serves and net kills. I've collected most of them as leftovers from tournaments, and I even have a bunch that were still good from tournaments. Phil
if the competitive environment is feathers, the students must practice with feathers. if it is a lower level, school environment, the plastic is suitable. i usually solicit used plastic shuttles from neighboring community centers and clubs. they are usually very helpful and supportive, so i will get boxloads of old plastics for the kids to play with. the problem you will to address is how bad a shape the shuttle is in before it is finally retired. with feather shuttles, this may be a bit harder to obtain unless you are with a local club and you can acquire all the spent shuttles. the life of a used feather unfortunately is still shorter than the used life of a plastic, before the shuttle practice value is nil. where i consider a shuttle useless is when you spend more time concerned with the flight and response of the shuttle than with your particular drill. so, when i am practicing smashes, a more used shuttle is acceptable, while a service or touch stroke should be practiced with a cleaner shuttle to ensure touch consistency is achieved
Both nylons and feathers are ok with me, each has it own good and bad points. Nylon has one flight pattern and feather has a slightly different one. There is no right or wrong of using nylon shuttles as some people believe as both side is hitting the same shuttle.
my club only use plastic... looks like i'm one of the rare plastic people... 80% feather users? wow..
my club uses plastic and feather, but you have to pay more yearly fee to use feathers!!....cheap ppl!!.... But I use feather most of the time when I don't pay the "High Priced" fee because I join lots of tournaments, so the coach doesn't care because he thinks we are practicing for tournaments....hehe... I agree with cooler than feather and nylon have 2 different flight patterns, but not THAT different...
I use 80% nylon ones for practice. In tournaments, they always provide feather ones. Ok, now I have one more excuse for not being successful in some of my tourny... hmmm... "different fly parttern"...
used broken down feathers for practice of course, not that rich. sometime people at the club do bring out the yonex as-50 for practice, hey it's their money.
I hate using plastic, no idea why. The feel just isn't there. That's how I feel anyway. We always use old shuttles at my coaching........some, at least.
Interesting... The date stamp of the last post on this thread is 2002, but the date stamp of the thread reads "Today"?
i use feather most of the time. but is it true that plastic shuttle weakens your string compared to feather?
Depends what you use to play with, if you play with feathers then its useless to warm up with plastic and vice versa since they fly differnetly. Feathers for me (long live the feather, well more than 2 rallies anyway)
I think I better clear up on what "practice" means (to me) If Practice shots for myself (with decent friends/players) are really training ones, then I use feather, the normal ones I used in games, such as AS30&40&50 and Champions&Tourneys. If Practice shots are for fooling around with my gf or friends or having fun, then I will use plastic ones.
I primarily practise with used feather shuttles because 1) I prefer to play w/ feather during matches 2) I get an ample supply of used shuttles I use plastic to drill when the facility will supply the plastic shuttles, but they tend to be cheaper, heavier, and slower. You can't practise w/ "used plastic" because the flight characteristics is like a rocket, while used feathers tends to be slower (with similar deceleration curve as a new shuttle) thus giving more time to concentrate on the drill, ie/ footwork, stroke, etc. Cheers!